Supermarket chain Tesco is trialling the use of Wi-Fi equipment in a small number of its UK stores.
If successful, it plans to extend the service to the firm's 2,700 sites across Britain, which would make it the first UK supermarket to implement such a scheme.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Tesco's chief information officer Mike McNamara, said: "You can stand Canute-like and pretend nothing is happening… or you can say it’s happening, and I am going to help it happen."
While stores can use in-store displays to advertise new products, one of the main reason for providing a Wi-Fi service would be to allow shoppers to access product reviews and compare prices. While this is already possible using a 3G connection, Wi-Fi availability would speed up the process considerably and hopefully boost sales.
Mr McNamara admitted however there could be issues relating to bandwidth if shoppers decide to remain in the store to stream their favourite television programmes.
